Public Lecture on Landscape Planning at Silpakorn University
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Lecture Title: Landscape and planning in the predictive state: New negotiations for landscape architecture in the smart Earth era
Lecture Synopsis: Environmental planning is undergoing a transition from the environmental state—characterized by regulatory processes like environmental impact assessment—to a “predictive state” driven by machine learning, geospatial artificial intelligence, and real-time environmental sensing. This predictive turn complicates the role of civil society, experts, and democratic deliberation in environmental governance. This talk for landscape architects and planners is delivered in three parts: (1) a rapid introduction to key issues raised in critical geography on the socio-ecological implications of the real-time monitoring, prediction and regulation of landscapes; (2) a few examples in Southeast Asia of scientists and civil society deploying predictive models in ecosystem services and ecological connectivity for landscape assessment and infrastructure planning and design; and (3) some strategic approaches for landscape architecture during this transition.
Ashley delivers public lecture at Silpakorn University: Landscape and Planning in the Predictive State. By Silpakorn University, 2025.
Bio: Ashley Scott Kelly is assistant professor in landscape architecture at the University of Hong Kong. Ashley’s work focuses on scenario-building and filling knowledge gaps for sustainable development, applying design methods to land change and landscape ecology for the study, advocacy, design and delivery of projects in ecologically complex and contested landscapes. Recent works include tropical road design guidelines, wildlife corridor modeling, and coupling remote sensing with historical narratives for novel impact assessment. Ashley teaches landscape planning and geospatial technologies and engages civil society across Southeast Asia. He is co-author of Critical Landscape Planning during the Belt and Road Initiative (Springer, 2021).
Ashley delivers public lecture at Silpakorn University: Landscape and Planning in the Predictive State. By Silpakorn University, 2025.
Ashley delivers public lecture at Silpakorn University: Landscape and Planning in the Predictive State. By Silpakorn University, 2025.
Ashley delivers public lecture at Silpakorn University: Landscape and Planning in the Predictive State. By Silpakorn University, 2025.
Posted by: Ashley Scott Kelly (Design for Conservation)
HKU Water Prize for two Thai-Myanmar Border Studio projects
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Congratulations to Maggie and Marcus, two of our HKU Landscape BA(LS) graduates who won the Prize for Outstanding Water Sustainability Undergraduate Capstone Project awarded by HKU’s Water Centre for their final-year studio projects.
Project: “Embedding landscape in riverine reserve design: Ecological metrics and manageability to strengthen unplanned community-based conservation networks in northern Thailand”
Marcus Leung Lok Yin proposes a landscape planning framework for increasing the sustainability and resiliency of one of Southeast Asia’s largest networks of community-based fish conservation zones. The roughly 50 existing zones were established and managed by the majority ethnic Karen villagers in Thailand’s Mae Hong Son Province over the past three decades. Existing freshwater ecology research on this network suggests it had a net positive effect on fish sustainability but that overfishing pressures continue to have adverse ecological impacts. Marcus’s framework challenges and extends a previous ecological assessment of this network by considering several additional landscape metrics for gauging the suitability and capacity of individual communities to fill gaps in the conservation network with additional zones. Karen people are deeply attached to the water, and these fish conservation zones provide a wide range of community benefits, including food security (fish is their primary protein source) and cultural sustainability. Marcus uses his landscape architecture and planning skillsets to accomplish the difficult task of simultaneously considering traditional ecological knowledge, science on freshwater ecology, and the political-economic legacies of Southeast Asia’s highland communities.
Project: “Field operations on hydrosocial territories: Landscape impacts of reservoir construction on the lower Yuam River, Thailand”
Maggie Yao Renyue proposes a series of strategies for the majority ethnic Karen communities living along the diversion tunnel’s planned 20-kilometer-long reservoir in Thailand’s Mae Hong Son Province. The diversion tunnel requires over one thousand check dams (weirs) to be constructed within the immediate catchments surrounding the reservoir to regulate water flow and sediment. Maggie first interrogates the planning and construction process of this highly dispersed system of weirs and considers their potential impacts on both the freshwater ecology and communities’ agricultural livelihoods. She then proposes (1) repurposing these weirs to maximize benefits to both agriculture and local ecology, and (2) taking advantage of nascent ecotourism opportunities. Maggie’s project has numerous compelling strengths, including her investigation of past legacies of development in the project area, consideration of cross-sector impacts beyond the status quo assessment, focus on community livelihood and cultural sustainability, scenario-building to deal with the uncertainty of large-scale development, and incorporating tactical landscape architecture and civil engineering interventions into larger-scale planning.
Field operations on hydrosocial territories: Landscape impacts of reservoir construction on the lower Yuam River, Thailand. By Maggie Yao Renyue, 2025.
Field operations on hydrosocial territories: Landscape impacts of reservoir construction on the lower Yuam River, Thailand. By Maggie Yao Renyue, 2025.
Field operations on hydrosocial territories: Landscape impacts of reservoir construction on the lower Yuam River, Thailand. By Maggie Yao Renyue, 2025.
Embedding landscape in riverine reserve design: Ecological metrics and manageability to strengthen unplanned community-based conservation networks in northern Thailand. By Marcus Leung Lok Yin, 2025.
Embedding landscape in riverine reserve design: Ecological metrics and manageability to strengthen unplanned community-based conservation networks in northern Thailand. By Marcus Leung Lok Yin, 2025.
Embedding landscape in riverine reserve design: Ecological metrics and manageability to strengthen unplanned community-based conservation networks in northern Thailand. By Marcus Leung Lok Yin, 2025.
Posted by: Ashley Scott Kelly (Design for Conservation)
Thai-Myanmar Border Studio, Final Review
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Final-year Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Studies students presented their final proposals for landscapes impacted by a planned 60-kilometer water diversion tunnel in northern Thailand. During this capstone studio on the Thai-Myanmar border, led by Ashley Scott Kelly and Yuan Zhuang, our landscape undergrads develop and present a 100-page research report to civil society organizations, visit a diverse range of development projects and programs across northern Thailand, individually design strategic planning proposals, and have their work juried by a panel of experts from planning, sociology, ecology, geography, and design.
This year’s jury included: Prof. Kelly Shannon (International Center for Urbanism, KU Leuven); Naruemon Thabchumpon (Fac. of Political Science, Chulalongkorn Univ.); Warong Wonglangka (Fac. of Architecture, Chiang Mai Univ.); Vanessa Lamb (Dept. of Social Sciences, York Univ.); Winnie Law (HKU Centre for Civil Society and Governance); Barry Day (Asia Design Director, B+H Architects); Zali Fung (Inst. of Geography and Sustainability, Univ. of Lausanne); Sunita Kwangta (Karen Environmental and Social Action Network, KESAN); Phnom Thano (Co-founder of Indigenous Media Network, Thailand); Xiaoxuan Lu (NUS Architecture); Cecilia Chu (CUHK School of Architecture); Inge Goudsmit (CUHK School of Architecture); Peter Cobb (HKU School of Humanities); Elizabeth Leven (Asia Ecological Consultants, aec Ltd.); Anhua Liang (SWA Group, Shanghai); Olgierd Nitka (Studio94); and several planners and designers from HKU Planning, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture.
The students, Ashley and Yuan express their gratitude to the jury and to HKU for its continued support for fostering critical and essential discussions about landscape development across the regions. Congratulations to all students!
Yannie presenting at HKU Landscape’s Public Review. By Tang Chi Tat, 2025.
Reforestation as self-determination: Broad-based integration of the framework species method in post-secondary education, Karen State, Myanmar. By Yannie Cheng Sum Yu, 2025.
Reforestation as self-determination: Broad-based integration of the framework species method in post-secondary education, Karen State, Myanmar. By Yannie Cheng Sum Yu, 2025.
Reforestation as self-determination: Broad-based integration of the framework species method in post-secondary education, Karen State, Myanmar. By Yannie Cheng Sum Yu, 2025.
Reforestation as self-determination: Broad-based integration of the framework species method in post-secondary education, Karen State, Myanmar. By Yannie Cheng Sum Yu, 2025.
From cut to connectivity: Challenging the planned mitigation of transmission-line corridors in the Karen highlands of northern Thailand. By Jennifer Chung Pui Shan, 2025.
From cut to connectivity: Challenging the planned mitigation of transmission-line corridors in the Karen highlands of northern Thailand. By Jennifer Chung Pui Shan, 2025.
Jennifer presenting at the Final Review to a panel of experts from planning, sociology, ecology, and geography, in addition to designers and planners. By Vicki Liu Jiani, 2025.
From cut to connectivity: Challenging the planned mitigation of transmission-line corridors in the Karen highlands of northern Thailand. By Jennifer Chung Pui Shan, 2025.
From cut to connectivity: Challenging the planned mitigation of transmission-line corridors in the Karen highlands of northern Thailand. By Jennifer Chung Pui Shan, 2025.
Road ecology in Zomia's last frontier: Mediating the new economic geographies of transmission lines, interbasin water transfer and access roads. By Celine Xiong Yuchen, 2025.
Road ecology in Zomia's last frontier: Mediating the new economic geographies of transmission lines, interbasin water transfer and access roads. By Celine Xiong Yuchen, 2025.
Road ecology in Zomia's last frontier: Mediating the new economic geographies of transmission lines, interbasin water transfer and access roads. By Celine Xiong Yuchen, 2025.
Celine presenting at the Final Review to a panel of experts from planning, sociology, ecology, and geography, in addition to designers and planners. By Tony Tsui Ho Yin, 2025.
Victor presenting at HKU Landscape’s Public Review. By Tang Chi Tat, 2025.
Refugees and resilience: Scaling up community-driven natural resource management amid food security crises and mega-infrastructure development on the Thai-Myanmar border. By Victor Jorge Lew, 2025.
Refugees and resilience: Scaling up community-driven natural resource management amid food security crises and mega-infrastructure development on the Thai-Myanmar border. By Victor Jorge Lew, 2025.
Refugees and resilience: Scaling up community-driven natural resource management amid food security crises and mega-infrastructure development on the Thai-Myanmar border. By Victor Jorge Lew, 2025.
Posted by: Ashley Scott Kelly (Design for Conservation)
HKU Landscape Undergrads Travel to Northern Thailand
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HKU Landscape undergrads traveled to northern Thailand in early March for their final-semester studio on regional landscape planning. During the 10-day trip, students traveled more than 500-kilometers overland to document sites planned for hydropower, interbasin water transfer, spoil disposal areas, flow regulation check dams for reservoir construction, river dredging, access roads, and high-voltage transmission lines. Students also visited case study sites of urban reforestation in Bangkok, rural reforestation in one of Southeast Asia's most extensive chronosequences of tropical forest plots near Chiang Mai, and a vast network of community-based fish conservation zones spanning parts of Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son, and Tak provinces. Students learned of the complexity of large-scale development and conservation project planning and of the challenges—technologically, politically, and physically—in working off-the-grid in remote and mountainous sites.
The students and their instructors professor Ashley Scott Kelly and Yuan Zhuang thank the People's Network of the Yuam, Ngao, Moei and Salween River Basin; the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN); The Border Consortium (TBC); International Rivers; the Regional Community Forestry Training Center for Asia and the Pacific (RECOFTC); the Forest Restoration Research Unit (FORRU) of Chiang Mai University; landscape architecture practices Northforest Studio and TK Studio and academics from Chulalongkorn and Chiang Mai Universities; and generous support from numerous friends in the region. Wish the students the best of luck designing their studio projects in the second half of the term.
HKU Landscape BA(LS) students at the boundary of one of over 50 community-based fish conservation zones in the Ngao River basin. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2025.
Overview of the watershed where a planned reservoir, hydropower dam, interbasin transfer pumping station, check dams, and access roads could impact ecological and cultural landscapes on a major tributary of the Salween River. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2025.
Students at one of six planned spoil disposal areas for the construction of a 60-kilometer water transfer tunnel and supporting infrastructure. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2025.
Students learning about fish ecology and community management of the Ngao River, Mae Hong Son, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2025.
Students within the planned reservoir area and tunnel intake location where a Buddhist ceremony was recently held to protect the river. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2025.
HKU Landscape BA(LS) students meet with the Southeast Asia campaigns director for International Rivers. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2025.
Meeting with The Border Consortium (TBC), the NGO coordinating refugee support in Thailand, at their offices in Bangkok. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2025.
Meeting with the Regional Community Forestry Training Center for Asia and the Pacific (RECOFTC) at their headquarters in Bangkok. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2025.
Students assist the drone survey of a forest plot with the Forest Restoration Research Unit (FORRU), Chiang Mai University. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2025.
Confluence of the Ngao and Khong Rivers at Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son, and Tak provinces, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2025.
Confluence of the Yuam and Ngao Rivers where a 20-kilometer-long reservoir and intake station are planned for an interbasin transfer tunnel. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2025.
Posted by: Ashley Scott Kelly (Design for Conservation)
Northern Metropolis Forum with Hong Kong Professional Institutes
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On Saturday, Hong Kong's professional institutes of architecture, landscape, planning, urban design, surveying, and architectural conservation co-organized their third forum on Hong Kong's Northern Metropolis. Design and planning programmes from four universities in Hong Kong presented studios, student theses, and research in and around the site of the future Northern Metropolis.
Northern Metropolis Forum 3.0: Implementation in Action. By Hong Kong Institute of Architects, 2024.
HKU's Division of Landscape Architecture presented two Master of Landscape Architecture theses by HUI Chun-sing and Ceas CHONG Yan Suen, both advised by professor Ashley Scott Kelly:
Slow Science in Development: Ensuring principled ecological auditing for the Smart City era in Hong Kong's Northern Metropolis
Thesis by: HUI Chun-sing
Advised by: Ashley Scott Kelly
Abstract: The Northern Metropolis increases already significant pressures on and around wetland habitats of international importance. To enable faster, more efficient development, the 2021 Policy Address suggested undertaking a comprehensive review of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process. Under that mandate in February 2022, the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) proposed a Centralized Environmental Database (CED) that would significantly alter Hong Kong's EIA process, especially its Ecological Impact Assessment (EcoIA). Such a database must take into account significant ecological and institutional challenges or else risk following dangerous and unsustainable trends in Smart City (or "Smart Earth") development. This design project: identifies strategic points of intervention in the EcoIA process that will enhance development decision-making; proposes a new framework of ecological auditing following scientific principles for optimising the EIA process; and outlines the required time and expertise to conduct EcoIA and surveys its challenges, especially regarding the current/future deployment of Smart City (or "Smart Earth") technologies. To do this, this design project uses a comprehensive Gantt chart to organize a review of scientific ecological studies and past development projects in Hong Kong that predate the Northern Metropolis but are nonetheless central to its development and future sustainability. The Government's four main proposals for "optimizing" the EIA process include: introducing a Centralised Environmental Database (CED); optimising the EIA process completion time to around 18 months for typical projects and around 24 months for major or complicated projects; standardising the requirements of ecological baseline surveys, covering the methods, frequencies, and durations required for conducting the surveys for different types of ecological systems; and conducting EIA studies in parallel with the detailed design of development projects. The Government's four proposals will directly impact the effectiveness and quality of EcoIA due to the inherent complexity and uncertainty of ecological knowledge handled in the existing deliberative process. This design project supports a new ecological auditing framework (i.e., a principled systematic follow-up process) that builds trust among stakeholders, recognises the importance of transparency as a process (especially when threatened by increasing technological innovation), and ensures EIA is not reduced to a pro forma process chasing to secure development permits. The ecological auditing process can be a key tool for enhancing the scientific merit, accountability and comprehensiveness of the EIA process and directing the Northern Metropolis Strategy towards more sustainable means and ends.
Northern Metropolis Forum 3.0: Implementation in Action. By Hong Kong Institute of Architects, 2024.
Slow Science in Development: Ensuring principled ecological auditing for the Smart City era in Hong Kong's Northern Metropolis. By HUI Chun-sing, 2024.
Making an environmental authority: Development, negotiation and the technical production of agricultural land under Hong Kong New Agriculture Policy
Thesis by: Ceas CHONG Yan Suen
Advised by: Ashley Scott Kelly
Abstract: The Northern Metropolis will integrate agricultural programmes with urban planning, including multistorey farming, urban agriculture, and continued development of the Agricultural Park (Agri-Park)—a hub for agro-technology, knowledge transfer, and modern farm management established by the 2016 New Agriculture Policy. However, the drive towards modernisation raises critical questions about how productivity, sustainability, and conservation are defined and measured, especially as urbanisation accelerates in the New Territories. Additionally, the legacy of land-banking, land conversion disputes, development delays and cost overruns, benefits of supporting infrastructures, and farm leasing and production issues has heightened concerns about transparency and the potential prioritisation of private development interests. Drawing on the complex developmental and ecological legacies of Hong Kong, including numerous wetland and agricultural sites in the New Territories, this thesis offers a series of scenarios for the future of the Agri-Park that question our definitions of productivity and efficiency, biodiversity, land use categorisation and conversion, technical expertise and technology transfer, and implications of ownership versus stewardship. Rather than solely critiquing or deconstructing the land development process, this work explores futures that recognise the productive tensions in the government's conservation mandates that allow it to make principled decisions amidst powerful financial and development interests. This work proposes alternative ways to articulate the Agri-Park's objectives and wields existing ecological and development metrics, such as risk and efficiency, to shift the development debate from physical planning to a more inclusive, negotiated space for all stakeholders.
Making an environmental authority: Development, negotiation and the technical production of agricultural land under Hong Kong New Agriculture Policy. By Ceas CHONG Yan Suen, 2024.
Posted by: Ashley Scott Kelly (ashleyscottkelly.com)
Revisiting the Great Leap Forward at Tai Kwun
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Design Trust Hong Kong hosted an event at Tai Kwun reflecting on Rem Koolhaas's seminal Harvard studio on the Pearl River Delta from roughly 25 years ago. What has changed in the questions designers are asking of urbanization in the region and of the evolution from the Pearl River Delta to the Greater Bay Area?
HKU Landscape's professor Ashley Scott Kelly presented on a roundtable with Kate Orff, Stephanie Smith, Mihai Craciun, and Design Trust grantees Elaine Yan Ling Ng and Zhang Lei.
Design Trust Decade Talks, "Remapping Landscape, Heritage and Future", left to right: Ashley Scott Kelly, Stephanie Smith, Zhang Lei, Mihai Craciun, Kate Orff, Elaine Yan Ling Ng. By Yongki Sunarta, courtesy of Design Trust, 2024.
Design Trust Programme Card. By Design Trust Hong Kong, 2024.
Design Trust Decade Talks, "Remapping Landscape, Heritage and Future", left to right: Ashley Scott Kelly, Stephanie Smith, Zhang Lei, Mihai Craciun, Kate Orff, Elaine Yan Ling Ng. Courtesy of Design Trust, 2024.
Sarah M. Whiting describing the importance of the Project on the City and Great Leap Forward for the Harvard GSD. Courtesy of Design Trust, 2024.
Rem Koolhaas delivering the keynote for Design Trust Decade Talks. By Yongki Sunarta, courtesy of Design Trust, 2024.
Posted by: Ashley Scott Kelly (ashleyscottkelly.com)
Thai-Myanmar Border Studio 2024 Final Review
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HKU Landscape undergrads just concluded their final year with our Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. For its second year, this landscape planning studio course, led by professor Ashley Scott Kelly, examined a series of contentious and protracted development projects along the border between Thailand and Myanmar. These projects included planned dams on the Salween and Yuam rivers, a coal mine in Chiang Mai province, and a large-scale water diversion tunnel proposed from the Salween to Chao Phraya basins.
Students gain understanding in the studio not only of how planners or architects or landscape architects might be involved in large-scale planning projects but also how cultural anthropologists or political scientists might approach, evaluate, and address development throughout Southeast Asia. The curriculum combines both desktop research and field visits and addresses topics including environmental histories of Thailand and Myanmar, participatory and customary mapping, transnational advocacy for environmental and human rights, land governance, traditional ecological knowledge, conservation science, villager research, and environmental assessment.
In mid-March, students embarked on a 10-day overland journey covering approximately 400 kilometers from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot. During this trip, students engaged with several environmental and human rights advocacy groups, including The Border Consortium (TBC), Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), indigenous community groups, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), and ecologists from the Forest Restoration Research Unit (FORRU) and sociologists from the Center for Ethnic Studies and Development (CESD) at Chiang Mai University. Then, for eight weeks after returning to Hong Kong, students developed landscape planning proposals that coordinated environmental knowledge through community mapping, villager research, and citizen science; addressed conflicts between biocultural diversity and scientific reforestation programs; and navigated diverse cultural and environmental value systems in dual-governed regions.
Students defended their proposals at the final review with a diverse jury, including Richard Engelhardt (Former UNESCO Regional Advisor for Culture in Asia and the Pacific); Prof. Jeff Hou (Chair Professor and Head of Department of Architecture, NUS); David Gallacher (Executive Director, Environment, AECOM); Warong Wonglangka (Faculty of Architecture, Chiang Mai University); Jason Lubanski (Karen Environmental and Social Action Network, KESAN); Sunita Kwangta (Karen Environmental and Social Action Network, KESAN); Dorothy Tang (Master of Landscape Architecture Program Director, NUS); Jayde Roberts (School of Built Environment, Univ. of New South Wales); Vũ Việt Anh (Dept. of Urban Planning, Univ. of Architecture Ho Chi Minh City); Billy Hau (HKU School of Biological Sciences); Peter Cobb (HKU School of Humanities); and several planners and designers from HKU Planning, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture.
The students and Ashley express their gratitude to the jury and to HKU for its continued support for fostering critical and essential discussions about landscape development across the regions. Congratulations to all students!
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Eddie Chan Shu Fai, 2024.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
Re-training the science of reforestation: Cultural and geopolitical considerations for the framework species method in Karen State, Myanmar. By Sam Wendell Chen Co, 2024.
Re-training the science of reforestation: Cultural and geopolitical considerations for the framework species method in Karen State, Myanmar. By Sam Wendell Chen Co, 2024.
Re-training the science of reforestation: Cultural and geopolitical considerations for the framework species method in Karen State, Myanmar. By Sam Wendell Chen Co, 2024.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Olly Liu Yapeng, 2024.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Eddie Chan Shu Fai, 2024.
Scale-jumping as strategy: A Manual for creating dynamic impact geographies and technologies of humility in northern Thailand. By Enson Lam Yi Ham, 2024.
Scale-jumping as strategy: A Manual for creating dynamic impact geographies and technologies of humility in northern Thailand. By Enson Lam Yi Ham, 2024.
Scale-jumping as strategy: A Manual for creating dynamic impact geographies and technologies of humility in northern Thailand. By Enson Lam Yi Ham, 2024.
Scale-jumping as strategy: A Manual for creating dynamic impact geographies and technologies of humility in northern Thailand. By Enson Lam Yi Ham, 2024.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Olly Liu Yapeng, 2024.
Upstreaming solidarity: A Strategy to create time for villager research through landscape networks along the lower Yuam River, Thailand. By Iris Tsui Tsz Shan, 2024.
Upstreaming solidarity: A Strategy to create time for villager research through landscape networks along the lower Yuam River, Thailand. By Iris Tsui Tsz Shan, 2024.
Upstreaming solidarity: A Strategy to create time for villager research through landscape networks along the lower Yuam River, Thailand. By Iris Tsui Tsz Shan, 2024.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Olly Liu Yapeng, 2024.
